Unless otherwise specified, the descriptions of sources in this section are extracted from Pierre-Etienne Will and collaborators,Official Handbooks and Anthologies of Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

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Description

documentType

Book

Title

Yunjian yanlue 雲間讞略[A Brief Account of Judgments in Songjiang]

Topic

2.2 Judicial cases: Local casebooks

Historical period

Early Qing (1644-1796)

Country

Chinese

Reprint (year of)

2005

Author

Mao Yilu 毛一鷺

Collection

Lidai panli pandu 歷代判例判牘

Volume

12

Number of volume

3

Publisher

中國社會科學出版社

Place of publication

北京

Publication type

Print

Comment

An anthology of “court opinions”, always introduced with the words shende 審得, composed by the author during his tenure as prefectural judge (tuiguan 推官) in Songjiang 松江 (Jiangsu) and as acting magistrate in Huating 華亭 and Qingpu 青蒲. According to the table of contents there were originally 321 cases, of which 171 [183 according to Jiang and Wu] remain in the extant portion. Most of the cases were remanded to Mao by higher officials, including not only the grand coordinator and regional inspector but also all of the local cicuit officials, because of his reputation as a judge. They concern every sort of crime.Each entry is captioned with a characterization of the crime, followed by an indication of the of the criminal or accuser. In about 50 entries the answer of the superior offices is recorded. The majority of cases concern natives of Songjiang prefecture, but there are also a few from other areas, such as Suzhou 蘇州, Wujiang 吳江, Jiading 嘉定, Yixing 宜興, Wujin 武進, and local military offices. The final juan contains Mao‟s communications with his superiors, including suggestions for change; they concern such problems as clerical abuses in granaries and storehouses, abuses in the service position in charge of all calculations (the zongshu 總書), abuses by local students (shengyuan 生員), the condition of prisoners in cold weather, the prohibition of women‟s involvement in legal cases, and local officials reporting tax collection as completed when it is still ongoing (this last communication written in Huating). The final pages, with five additional communications, are missing. According to Jiang and Wu (see below), the Yunjian yanlü e was published during the 1610s or early 1620s; the latest case recorded is from 1608.